Perinote Blog: Tips and tricks to get the most out of Perinote

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Getting Started

I just downloaded Perinote. What do I do now?

Sun, 1 Nov 2015 12:00:00 PDT

You've decided to give Perinote a try and just downloaded it. Now
what? We have plenty of documentation but, if you're like most
people, that's where you'll go if everything else fails. No problem.

There are a few things new users sometimes have trouble with. How do I
open a folder? How do I add things to a folder? How do I convert a
note into a folder? Let's go through these basics here.

The Home Page

When you first start the app, it presents the home page.
From here, you can open various other pages, such as your contacts
list, your calendar, and your collection of folders. To do so, just
tap on one of the icons in the vertical menu bar.

Let's start by opening your folders. Tap the folder icon - second
from the top with the dark red background.

If you've just installed the app and haven't changed anything yet,
you'll see a new page showing your "Top Level Folders" and a list of
interesting things below. Each of the items in the list below are
folders. For example, there's a folder for "Things to Delegate" and
another for "Ideas". The dark colored bar at the top shows the
currently open folders, in this case "Top Level Folders".

You've probably already figured this out: "Top Level Folders" is a folder
containing a bunch of other folders. And, yes, if you open one of the
other folders, you can add "deeper" folders to it, and so on.

The Top Level Folders page looks pretty but now what? How do you
add something to "Ideas"?

Opening a Folder

Navigation in Perinote is really simple. To go down a level (that
is, open a folder) simply tap on its icon. To open "Ideas", tap on
the round blue pencil icon at the right edge. If you do this now,
"Ideas" will appear at the top of the page and a large empty blue
space will appear below. The "Ideas" folder is empty.

To go up a level - and reopen the containing folder, tap on the
icon for the currently open folder. If "Ideas" is the currently open
folder (displayed at the top of the page), tap on the pencil icon at
the top right. You will be returned to the original folders page with
"Top Level Folders" at the top and the list of folders, including
"Ideas", below.

Navigating is useful and necessary but, of course, what you really
want is to add your own content.

Adding Items to a Folder

In Perinote, folders can contain any combination of any kinds of
items. I like to refer to it as a heterogenious system. You can add
any number of notes, contacts, tasks, calendar events to a folder, in
any order. And you can reorder them as you like.

To add an item, tap the Add icon (it has a + sign) in the menu bar.
From the drop down list, choose the kind of item you want to add,
let's say a note. An empty note will immediately appear at the bottom
of the list. If you are adding the first item, it will appear just
under the open folder header, since the folder is empty.

Now that you have an empty note, add some text. Just tap on the
note area and the keyboard will popup. Start typing. Whatever you
type will be saved automatically - no further actions are necessary.

From the "Add" menu, you can also add contacts, events, and tasks.
Go for it.

Converting an Item to a Folder

I could just as well leave out this paragraph. Why? Every item is
automatically a folder. There's nothing more for you to do.

The moment you add a note, it is a note and a folder at the same
time. Just open it (tap on its icon at the right edge) and you can
begin to add items to it.

Sometimes people prefer to have a visual distinction between items
that they intend to be folders and those that are just plain items.
One way to do this is to hide the note date for intentional folders
and show the note date for other items.

To hide the note date just tap on the date. Then, in the popup,
tap on "Don't Show Note Date."

Getting Back to the Home Page

I'll close with one more hint. To get back to the home page, just
tap the Perinote icon in the upper left corner.